Like a lightning flash
After Ungaretti’s ‘Il lampo della bocca’
Men who came before me, in their thousands,
and whose load of years was heavier yet than mine,
were wounded (mortally, they felt) by glimpsing,
like a lightning flash, a mouth.
And knowing this won’t help my suffering.
But if you look at me with mercy in your eyes
and talk to me, a kind of music fills the air
and I forget the wound; forget the pain with which it burns.
For Ever
Rome, 24 May 1959
(After the death of his wife of 38 years)
Patiently, I’ll dream,
I’ll settle to the never-ending task
and slowly slowly
out of the extremities of arms reborn
hands will reopen, come to rescue me,
eyes reappearing in their sockets will give light again
and, suddenly unblemished, you’ll have resurrected,
and your voice will be my guide anew:
I’m seeing you again, for ever.
Mimosa
When, every year, I notice February come to life,
its waters clouded still, as if for modesty,
mimosa bursts in tiny yellow blossoms.
It’s framed in the window of the house I used to live in
and of this one, where I’m spending my old age.
As I come closer to the great and final silence
will mimosa be a sign that nothing dies
if its appearance is repeated year by year?
Or will I come to know at last that death
exerts dominion only over what appears?
